The Stream

Friday, June 27, 2014

With this guy around, we are a flowing river in constant motion. Stuff is getting done. He completed the sink, mirror, trim, plumbing--designed and built by himself.

Gretchen is pretending to wash her hands. Her pictures usually involve flexing muscles. Correction: any picture of hers involves flexing her muscles. The mirrors Mat made are up against the wall. He found these mirrors going on Etsy for $250. He managed to buy himself some walnut, glass, and a glass cutter and save us some cash by making them himself. Maybe I'll have him sell these mirrors and he'll become rich and famous.

We bought this super power Toto Drake II for Becket specifically. It's supposed to be designed to NOT clog. I think they underestimated the power of this kid. He clogged it the first time. No toilet has the strength to flush his royal dukes. I think Toto should request to fly Becket out personally to redesign a clog proof toilet.

There you have it. We used school house green chalkboard paint on the walls. I will have to post our plans for these at a later time.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Hey there! We are making some progress in the Laundry room. The barn door is up and running, or should I say rolling.

Now starts my job of wiping out all the closets. There is so much dust that I sneeze often during cleaning. BUT, Oh! It feels so good to start putting things back into their clean orderly positions. I may have been made fun of by said contractor and husband because I was so excited.

I picked some drawer organizers up at IKEA. It was so nice to have an operating desk to do all of my rebate paperwork. Using the word "paperwork" sounds so officey official. I just need Dwight Schrute to sit by me.

I unfortunately had to cover it up this pretty job with plastic the next day because of the sawdust from the second go round of cabinets being installed.

Here are our second round of cabinets:

The drawer fronts won't be put on for a while--but I should have countertops by next Tuesday.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

My kids are raising themselves these days. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY DO ALL DAY. So far, nothing too bad, minus Gretchen's tooth going into Micah's forehead after a pillow fight.

And she also cut her eye open after falling out of bed during the night. That was out of our control. She's had a rough week.

We have managed to squeeze in a few things, like our first REAL soccer game for Ellie's birthday.

Wish I would have got a picture of that cute Ellis girl. She's sitting right behind Beck and Gret. That's her sister Grace, but no El.

We've had many Home Depot trips

Furniture Trips

Ice cream trips

Trip on some LEGOS trips

Visit the cousins trips

They've been micro spurts of fun, but you start to feel a tad guilty jipping them of thier summer normalcy. Although, I don't think any of us can remember our parents entertaining us everyday either. They'll be quite alright.

Becket has even made a go to menu for lunches. Way to step up and take responsibility Beck.

Friday, June 20, 2014

Mat's parents redid their kitchen a while ago and they held onto their old island butcher block. They were kind enough to let us reuse that butcher block in our laundry room and future powder room.

It took a lot of refitting and cutting to make it work, but with this guy around, I've found anything is possible. I just have to keep him around, since he's been home for a bit, he's been able to get so much done.

I'm not sure when the drawer fronts will go in, but I'm liking what I'm seeing so far.

I searched endlessly for a before picture, but I couldn't find one that had the old particle board counter top. I have the cabinets, but that is it.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

In order to move the appliances in, we got rid of the hot tub to make it a smooth delivery.

We were thinking about getting rid of it anyway. It takes up hot realty space on our patio and hot tubs are germy.

I made a deal with the kids, lets go swimming at the rec, where they take care of the maintenance for us and eventually we'll build a playhouse in the backyard. A handshake happened over sandwiches and it was a done deal. Minutes after listing it on KSL it was gone. I sympathized with this gal who wanted to give it to her husband for Father's Day. Never sympathize unless you plan to move it yourself (enlisting your own family and neighbors), waiting 2hrs later than she told you, and getting no thanks for it.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Shou Sugi Ban
Definition:Shou Sugi Ban (or Yakisugi) is an ancient Japanese exterior siding technique that preserves wood by charring it. Traditionally, Sugi (Japanese Cyprus) was used. The process involves charring the wood, cooling it, cleaning it, and finishing it with a natural oil. Shou Sugi Ban is what we did on our front room fireplace. Mat has been dying to try this ancient Japanese Secret. I was a little unsure, mostly because we would have to change every ounce of brick in our house, but it actually is very friendly and not as dark and dank as I pictured. The wood ends up being a chocolate color, which I can handle ALL THE TIME. I love chocolate and chocolate loves me. Here are some pictures of the process.Brush off the charred wood and then vacuum (my job). My orange toenails were highlighted florescent by the time I was done, covered in the fine, soot powder.Nail wood to fireplace

Use a nice sturdy glue on adhering it to the brick. Otherwise you'll find that it has fallen down in the morning. Wah! It was a nice topple effect on my head while I was touching up the paint on the fireplace.

Keep this guy fed and the music turned up. He was making some serious cuts and probably needed a serious shower.

Oil the wood and then wipe it off

Kon'nichiwa. Smothered chocolate wood goodness complete! Beautiful.

Before--if you were wondering (Kelli)

Cabinet update: My motto: You can freak out, cry, (which is all perfectly okay) but in the end, everything always works out. We may have to wait another week, but it will be what we want and it will be what we will have to live with for the rest of our child raising lives. Our cabinet guy was good, he said, "Anything you want. We'll fix it, I just want you to be happy." Doesn't that make you feel good? He's even working this Saturday to finish them up on time. I'm getting a lot of lemonade out of this mess up. I raised my counter up an inch, I am getting everything to line up, different drawer pulls that don't compensate the depth of my drawers and I'm getting a bigger island sink.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Cabinets are going in and it was like having Santa Claus come to your house in the very flesh wearing nothing but carhartt pants and a polo shirt.

the walnut boxes are for the fridge and freezer

It even makes a nice place to take a nap for one who has stayed up waaay too late on these nice summer evenings.

HOWEVER! And, it's a big HOWEVER, after the cabinet guys took off I stared at the new drawers with a squint in my eye and slight head tilt and realized they were looking a little shallow. I went downstairs for a few cupboard items to check and I was sorely disappointed.

WHAT THE FUDGE!

Cereal is not going to slide in nicely like I had planned.

No to the jars too!--blender, baskets, Nutella jar.....

To explain, I went over the specifics many times with my cabinet guy and he actually complimented me on my anal organized mind. To quote him, "I wish all my customers would think it through like you do." I took it nicely. Well, Mat found these awesome flush cabinet drawer pulls and so we decided to add those to them. Our cabinet guy forgot to add in the space the pulls would take up and reconfigure the needed depth for the function of the drawer. Curse those drawer pulls. A foe indeed.

I sat in my chair and cried. It's all I could do. I plopped my tired self in a chair and stared at my almost kitchen. These cabinets would not do and I didn't want to start over because that would hold up the countertop guy, and then the installer, and the plumber not to mention my cooking... So I sat. And sat some more. And cried some more. And swore some more (but that gets you nowhere kids). And then I made a plan.

Cabinet guy would have to make it right. That was my plan. Simple, so simple I had nothing. This was my only plan.

In the morning, we had a long talk about how to fix them. He said he needed two weeks to start over. He would have the countertop guys template it and that way everything will go in at once, holding no one up.

weekly flow

Playing fruit basket game in the pool where you choose categories to pick from. When it was Becket's turn he chose endangered animals for 1 and diseases for the 2nd one. The kids looked pretty clueless on choosing items that fell under these categories.

Gretchen could know longer wait to get her teeth brushed by her Dad. "Dad, do you know what this is? A toothbrush. You know what you do with it? Brush your teeth."

Gretchen singing: "Made in China" to the familiar Disney Tune.

Micah singing: "That's a bunch of bologna!"

Becket listening to the RC Wiley commercial in the car and their advertisement for free hotdogs: "Hotdogs, they're nice."